Mechanical Technology may 2015

⎪ Innovative engineering ⎪

Africa Prize

very problem while trying to finish a university project on time. Chura – the Swahili word for frog – enables Kenyans to ‘leap’ airtime between mobile carriers, buy airtime in more convenient denominations, and even exchange it for cash. Njuguna and his team worked on the application for a full year before it was com- mercially viable, and Chura has now been chosen as a finalist in the first Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation.

aluminium unit, but the Africa Prize process made me think to add functions I had never even thought of,” he says. “I will always be grateful to the Academy for the knowledge I have gained through the Africa Prize.” The Draadsitter works off batteries that last up to three years. It isn’t affected by harsh weather or set-off by the sound or flash of thunder and lightning, and has now been tested on fences with up to 22 rows of wiring. Over the last six months, Pretorius’ innovation has attracted interest from game famers, conservationists and companies across Africa. The product is now in pre-production phase, and should begin rolling out by mid-2015. As for commercial viability, Pretorius is excited, but has learnt from his mentors to be careful. Low-cost sustainable water filter system Askwar Hilonga, The Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science & Technol- ogy, Tanzania Imagine living near an expansive water source, yet paying for expensive, bottled drinking water because the river or lake serving the community is polluted. This widespread problem is what led a 38-year-old Tanzanian engineer to experi- ment with sand-based water filters and nanotechnology. After an impressive 33 publications on his trademarked Nanofilter, Hilonga is developing his business plan for an innovation that could change the lives of thousands of Africans. Each Nanofilter is bespoke, and absorbs the contaminants that are present in a specific body of water – from heavy metals or minerals such as copper and fluoride, to biologi- cal contaminants such as bacteria and viruses or pollutants such as pesticides. Hilonga is a chemical engineer and lecturer at the Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology. Described by the institution as a “very prolific young Tanzanian chemical en- gineer”, his aim is to inspire Africans to empower their own communities. Using his knowledge of nanotechnology, Hilonga essentially modernised the tradi- tional sand-filtration methods still widely in use to purify water.

The Nanofilter business plan is for community centres to become water hubs, filtering and selling water that is accessible to the most isolated and under-serviced communities. Hilonga is shown here installing filters at Gongali Empower Community Centre.

After initial challenges in getting a digital technology recognised, the Chura application now has a copyright and is supported by several mobile carriers operating in Kenya. Initially marketed to students, Chura has made around 15 000 transactions in the last 14 months, with a 60% return- customer rate. During the six months of mentoring and training provided as part of the Africa Prize by the UK’s Royal Academy of Engineering, the application has evolved even further. The team is working on a mobile app, they’ve reduced the number of steps required to use the service, and introduced a new website. The training by the Royal Academy taught the Chura team, part of the University of Nairobi’s C4DLab Start-up Incubation Programme, to collect cus- tomer data and base company decisions on this, rather than on intuition alone. Now, Njuguna says, they track customer behaviour to find out where there are bugs that need fixing. One of these four engineering innova- tions will win £25 000 when the first Africa Prize winner is announced in Cape Town on 1 June 2015, with £10 000 for each runner-up. q

Hilonga is also the director of a univer- sity spin-off company called the Gongali Model Company, with the Nanofilter as one of the projects showing how research can be used in everyday life. The Nanofilter business plan is for community centres to become water hubs, filtering and selling water that is accessible to the most isolated and under-serviced communities. Here, the water can be purified, and water-borne diseases controlled. Since embarking on the Africa Prize journey, Hilonga’s project has been grant- ed an interest-free loan, filter components have been donated to the company for the initial rollout of 100 filters to test his business model, and a prototype is be- ing used at the Gongali Model Company Community Centre. Hilonga has more than 30 orders for home-based Nanofilters, 23 en- trepreneurs ready to set up their own businesses with the filters, and six local schools set to provide their learners with clean drinking water. The multi-network mobile phone service Samuel Njuguna Wangui, University of Nairobi, Kenya In much of Africa, mobile phone signal strength is inconsistent. As a result, most data and mobile phone users have at least two SIM cards to ensure they can always connect to at least one network. This means airtime is often trapped on a SIM card that isn’t in use, and locked-into a particular provider. This is what inspired the Chura app, a web-based application designed by 27-year old Kenyan software engineer Samuel Njuguna. The app was developed after Njuguna and four friends – now his innovation teammates – experienced this

Samuel Wangui’s Chura airtime switch app enables Kenyans to ‘leap’ airtime between mobile carriers.

Mechanical Technology — May 2015

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